Bea's Mysterious Past

In summer days long gone by I had one of the greatest jobs on the planet. I worked in the Rides Department at Hershey Park, in Pennsylvania. That year I had been promoted to a supervisory position. I supervised three ride groups of roughly 70 people per shift and then one day opportunity knocked on my door. A vacancy came up at the Dry Gulch Railroad and I bid the job. People laughed at me and thought I was out of my mind…why would I want to get dirty and sweat the summer away? Why on earth would I want to leave my cushy supervisor’s job and become a filthy train engineer? The answer, I was terribly curious. Prior to my debut all engineers had been male; I took a demotion to fill the vacancy and became Hershey Park's first female engineer. There is nothing quite like being seated in the engine cab, a lit propane jet shooting between your knees into a steam boiler (this has nothing to do with igniting farts either) gazing at a multitude of valves and gauges that run an iron horse. I doubt I’ll ever experience anything like it again. The key to being a good engineer is to watch the gauges and monitor the amount of water injected into the boiler. The trick of it was to build enough pressure so you could make it around the track, 2 trestle bridges and back up the hill into the station without “popping off”. Popping off would occur if your boiler pressure tripped past 180 psi (pounds per square inch) and would automatically vent-hence the train would slow to a crawl. If the train stopped it either had to be pushed into the station by all the engineers or you had to tamp the flame up to rebuild steam. This took a long time because the boiler would crack if fired too quickly and at too high a flame. Keep in mind there were always 2 trains running. So if one got stuck you caused a traffic jam of epic proportion lol and nobdy likes a train full of pissed off people. There were 4 of us scheduled per shift (2 engineers per locomotive for 2 trains) physically you could only drive/take the heat for a certain amount of time before dehydration would set in especially in 90F-100F (32C-40C?) degree weather of late August.The uniform was flame resistant and scratchy (I’ve got sensitive skin and was forced to wear undershirts or break out in a rash. I sweltered). Instead of light sneakers we wore steel toed boots with thick socks. I got a lot of shit especially from the maintenance guys but stupidity and pride told me to gut it out. I chose this battle therefore I had to suck it up, there was no one to defend me and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Gauging pressure was the toughest lesson for me and there were a few rookie days where I ended up stuck half way up the hill in the rain, tamping the flame up so I could build enough to finish my run. Thank goodness there weren’t that many people on board and it was the lighter train. With a little bit of steam and a light throttle we limped up the hill. First skirmish won. In the beginning I did the grunt work, putting sticky graphakote on the inner sides of every turn by hand on the track to save metal wearing against metal, greasing the engine and coming in early to fire but I began to enjoy it. (Graphakote was like putting your hand into black sandy vegetable shortening, messy, smelly and it made my hands bleed) Eventually I gained acceptance through my own stubborn nature, wit, charm and a touch of grace. The senior engineers showed me fun things to do with steam. On damp or foggy nights I learned how to “steam the graveyard” by driving slowly past the fake little western style Boot Hill and by opening up a vent pipe in the side of the engine…it created an effect similar to eerie monster movie fog. You could hear the passengers oooh and ahhhhh. Although my hazing into the brotherhood was not so fun, the test was to come out of the engine house (where the engines go to sleep at night also was our break room) and snag a ride off the moving train. You had to jog alongside the moving cars, grab onto a strut (hobo style) on the last car and swing yourself into a seat. Generally the guys slowed down for each other…lol..not for me…lol the train flew by and luckily my timing and speed were right. I nailed the catch and breathlessly sat down. I also had to have an “Engine Chew” yes folks I’ve chewed tobacco-Red Man to be exact. It was disgusting, I almost threw up while driving but managed to master the art of spitting. Nobody ever gave me shit again.

Being in your Tweens is such a wonderful time in life. It's carefree, you'll live forever and you know everything there is to know in the universe. Ah youth! lol See that picture, I used to drive that train.